Is social media obsession just a search for personal meaning? That's the question that Rebecca Newberger Goldstein posits in a New York Times essay, titled "What Would Plato Tweet?" While she approaches the issue from a secular perspective, her insight into humanity's recurring questions of whether and how we matter as individuals are right on track.

She says, "It's stunning that our culture has, with the dwindling of theism, returned to the answer to the problem of mattering that Socrates and Plato judged woefully inadequate. Perhaps their opposition is even more valid today. How satisfying, in the end, is a culture of social-media obsession? The multi-replication so readily available is as short-lived and insubstantial as the many instances of our lives they replicate."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Perhaps the right question to ask is what we are reaching for when we reach for our smartphones. Is it really for a message, like, or retweet? Or is it looking for the answer to a deeper question—whether or not we matter as people?